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HP439- Crack
🕑 Added 2025-06-04 23:08:31 +0000 UTCHarry leaned forward, palms flat on the table, eyes locked on Tracey's. “You are not less important than Daphne. Not by a mile. You two were my first proper friends. Real ones. Then best friends. I never thought it would shift into something else. Probably ‘cause I couldn’t imagine losing either of you.”
He exhaled, voice still even. “I wanted a moment with you. A proper one. My say. Susan happened first, then Daphne... but that wasn’t planned. None of it was.”
Tracey laughed, eyes a touch wet, but her grin didn’t waver. “I know, idiot. We talked beforehand.”
Harry snorted, walking round the table. “So that’s what you lot were whispering about.” He stopped just in front of her, head tilted slightly. “Tracey Davis.”
That earned him a raised eyebrow. “Potter.”
He paused, then cracked a half-smile. “You’ve been stuck with me since day one. Watched me threaten portraits, argue with staircases, and try to poison someone once.”
“Twice,” she corrected, grinning. “First year. Cupcakes.”
He nodded. “Right. So, by now, you know exactly what you’re signing up for.”
“Possibly a lifetime of damage control and hiding evidence,” she said, taking a step closer.
“Tempted?”
She smirked. “Clearly.”
He didn’t reach for her. He simply stood there.
“I’ve liked you for longer than I’ve known what to do about it,” Harry said simply.
Tracey raised an eyebrow. “That was dangerously close to sweet.”
“I’m pacing myself,” he said.
“Good. I’d hate to see you strain something.”
The moment stretched. Then Tracey stepped in, closed the last bit of space, and kissed him.
It wasn’t rushed. Wasn’t dramatic either. Just solid, unhurried, and real. Her hand found his robes, gripping it near the shoulder like she was anchoring herself, and he leaned in without hesitation.
He touched her face, thumb brushing her cheek lightly. “You are trouble, Tracey Davis. The sort that sneaks into your bed, eats your sweets, and still expects you to brew her potions in the morning.”
Tracey rolled her eyes, but her fingers curled around his wrist. “That’s not a compliment.”
“It is when it’s you,” Harry said.
She didn’t pull away. Her face was still, but there was that twitch at the corner of her mouth—half smirk, half warning.
Harry tilted his head a bit. “You’re clever, annoying, stubborn as hell. Always in my business. Loud when you’re winning, louder when you’re losing. And every time you grin, I forget what I was meant to be cross about.”
“You’re being nice,” she said, voice a little thinner than usual.
“Don’t get used to it.”
Her laugh cracked on the edge, like she wasn’t expecting it. “You git.”
He leaned in just enough for her forehead to meet his. “You’re important. I should’ve said it sooner.”
Tracey’s eyes went soft, the sharp gleam dulled with something gentler. She looked at him properly then—no teasing, no smirking—just looked, like she’d finally let herself. Her lashes fluttered once, and her breath caught in that way girls hate anyone noticing.
“Go on, then,” she murmured, eyes glassy, “before I say something daft.”
Harry smirked. “You’re adorable when flustered.”
“And you’re doomed when Daphne finds out I cried.”
“I’ll tell her you punched me after.”
“Fair.”
They chatted a bit longer, letting the moment simmer just enough before Tracey stepped back and gave the bubbling cauldron a once-over.
“Right,” she said, nudging the ladle with the back of her hand. “Back to saving the castle from desperate teenagers.”
Harry rolled his sleeves again and gave the potion a slow stir. “Think we can guilt Snape into grading this as extra credit?”
“You’re not submitting this,” Tracey scoffed, reaching for the jar of powdered lacewing. “We’d end up explaining why we’ve got banned syrup and half a shelf’s worth of suspect ingredients from the kitchens.”
Harry raised a brow. “So... no?”
She dumped a pinch in, stirring clockwise. “Definitely no.”
The mixture hissed faintly, shifted from pale blue to a muddy violet. Harry sniffed it, then frowned. “That shouldn’t smell like stewed plums.”
“Maybe you overdid the knotgrass,” Tracey said, sliding the note Susan had written closer.
Harry glanced at the cauldron, then back to Tracey. “You stabilise it first. I need to think.”
Tracey tilted her head at him but didn’t question it. She was used to this by now. Over the years, he’d done it plenty, zoning out mid-task, eyes closed, coming back with exactly what they needed.
Harry dropped into the nearest chair and shut his eyes.
A second later, he was inside the Virtual Room. Two thousand cauldrons spread out before him, all flickering with different coloured brews, bubbling in unison. Years ago, before he even started Hogwarts, he barely managed two hundred. Now, two thousands wasn’t even a proper challenge.
Nigel appeared beside him without a word. “Romantic and brewing. A multitasker.”
Harry didn’t look up. “You want to give me notes or stand there like furniture?”
“Furniture might get more appreciation.”
The first few cauldrons adjusted their stir speed. Ratios changed, colours shifted. “We’ve got under three days. I am not in the mood for clever.”
“I wasn’t trying clever. Just making an observation,” Nigel replied. “Not many students balance flirtation and potion resistance research. And still manage patrols.”
“Not many students are me,” Harry muttered.
The simulations ran rapid-fire. One mix went too acidic, Harry cancelled the lot and restarted the variables. Three more batches collapsed under cross-reactivity. He restructured the formula entirely, split a new set of cauldrons, and added a stabiliser base he'd learned from one of Salazar’s old notes.
Another attempt.
Still off.
He leaned back slightly, scanning the cauldrons. Nigel finally spoke again, softer. “What are you looking for?”
“A response delay. Half a second,” Harry said. “If it doesn’t trigger under three seconds, it’s a delayed-release charm disguised as flavour. That’s what they’re using.”
“You think someone’s smart enough to bury it that deep?”
“No,” Harry said. “But the person selling it might be.”
He narrowed the ingredients down, stripped three from the list, and cross-compared them with known love potion variants.
Thirty-seven seconds later, one of the cauldrons turned clear and released a blue vapour. The scent barely noticeable, but that was the trick.
“That’s it,” he said. “Low yield, subtle. You’d never taste it in pumpkin juice.”
“Can you counter it?”
“Already have. Need to reinforce the suppressant base. Add something that breaks down the enchantment. Not just the potion. The charm woven in.”
Harry snapped his fingers, and two items shimmered into view beside the cauldron, a Silver Goblet with Poison Detection runes and an old Potion Recipe Book, both lifted from the deeper end of the Potter Vault back in first year. Copies of course, not the originals. He didn’t use them often as some of the other artifacts.
The other cauldrons faded out one by one, leaving just the cleared space and the two artifacts resting on the table. Harry pulled the goblet closer, tilting it side to side, letting the torchlight catch on its surface. It was clever magic... centuries old.
It didn’t just sense poison, it measured intent. Alcohol didn’t set it off, even if it slowly wrecked your liver. Sleeping Draught? Also fine, if the drinker wanted it. But slip the same draught into someone’s tea without asking, and the goblet flared up like a Christmas tree. Harry turned it over in his hand, fingers tracing the runes etched around the stem. The magic here wasn’t about ingredients. It judged motive. If someone drank poison willingly, it did nothing.
Harry turned it over again, scanning the older etchings. The lines shimmered faintly, glowing a soft blue where they overlapped. “Right,” he muttered, drawing a small circle with his wand. The internal charms unfolded like layered notes... intent reader, emotion gauge, a minor ward to suppress poisonous scents.
“Too many dependencies,” Harry said to himself. He didn’t need a bloody ethics lecture from the cup. He needed a tool that worked regardless of who was drinking or why. Just one clear trigger: Love Potion present, yes or no.
He held his wand over the stem. “Fractura,” he said.
The rune array cracked at once, like a spiderweb splitting across glass. The goblet dimmed, light pulsing faintly before going dark. Harry conjured a fresh parchment in the air and began sketching. His own rune design. Three rings, each feeding into the next. First one to detect Amortentia's base triggers, second to catch any charm-layered variants, third to pulse visibly if anything matched.
